CAGLS: Official NHL 14 Online Franchise - Random Rosters - Play ALL Human Opponents - Schedule Section #5 Due 4/9!

I forgot to update the thread last night, but we have advanced to the next round of the playoffs. I really, really hate now the NHL does the playoff seeding (though, based on what Brandon and I were reading, we're pretty sure the game stills screws it up). Instead of a simple 1-8 seed, things get broken down into two groups of 4 for each conference. And a division winner has to play a low seed no matter what. Mostly, that should be fine.

But what ends up happening then (or at least ended up happening in our league) it two really high seeds get stuck playing each other in the first round...and two really low seeds play each other in the first round. In the Eastern conference, Detroit (#2) played Buffalo (#3), while Carolina (#5) played NY Rangers (#7). And on the Western side, Colorado (#3) played Nashville (#4). As a result, the Eastern conference now has a semi-final matchup with all AI, and the #8 seed in the Western conference gets to play the AI. On top of that, some teams have injuries that they didn't have before we advanced...even though their series were completed... Yes, that is NHL 14.

Anyway, God speed to everyone as we get through the end of this season. We'll see how the offseason, player progression, and draft works. But there was some brainstorming going on of maybe just starting over, turning injuries off, and maybe even turning waivers off (if possible). This would give people a little more freedom when managing their rosters...and I think there definitely comes a point where instead of worrying about having a "realistic league", you just want to have a fun league. I don't think any of us signed up for Injury Manager/CBA Poorhouse 2014.

At least then, you wouldn't have to play without your star players for half the season, and you could (in theory) call up/send down players to give younger players a shot at sticking with the team. I'm not sure how everyone felt, but I know a few of us were so strapped for cap space, we could barely swap a player with our AHL club. And with injuries piled on top of that, it got pathetic. For my first round playoff series, I had 4 forwards hurt and had 2 defensemen starting as my 4th line wingers. Just some things to think about as we move forward.

We'll set the deadline for this next round at 1/31.

 
I'm not sure what to think about starting over.  As bad as the injuries have been handled in this game I think shutting them off is a good idea.  It seems to be worse than last year.  However if we were to start over I would rather do it after the trade deadline or the Olympics.  Mostly due to the rumors that St. Louis might be trying to trade for Miller.  I'm good with what everyone else wants to do however it still doesn't change how stupid the AI is at times and all the BS goals that get in.  

 
sendme said:
I'm not sure what to think about starting over. As bad as the injuries have been handled in this game I think shutting them off is a good idea. It seems to be worse than last year. However if we were to start over I would rather do it after the trade deadline or the Olympics. Mostly due to the rumors that St. Louis might be trying to trade for Miller. I'm good with what everyone else wants to do however it still doesn't change how stupid the AI is at times and all the BS goals that get in.
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Yeah, I even kicked around an idea of everybody playing in the same conference so we'd have more human games, but then it was pointed out that the Cup Final would be against a CPU team. Maybe a different idea then would just be ONLY playing human teams, regardless of conference, and not playing the CPU at all?

Though, with only 3 teams in the Eastern conference, I guess that could really throw off the balance of games played. Again, we're trying to make a feast out of a shit sandwich, lol, so I don't even know how much can be done. Just any ideas to make this more enjoyable for everyone is what we're after.

 
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jza1218 said:
I'd rather start with random rosters at this point, if we were to start over.
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Oh, yeah. I knew there was one more point I was forgetting. Random rosters, no injuries, no waivers. Just make the game as even as possible, and then ask everyone to play in a legitimate way. That's probably about as fair and balanced as we could make things.

 
How would random work? Is it we draft then start the season or we pick our teams then the computer picks the players?
 
Apparently "random" isn't truly random. There's serveral sets of jumbled rosters to make sure every team has their positions filed.
 
I don't know what is going on with our series.  Me and Detroit can't seem to be on at the same time to play our games. So I'm not sure what we can do.  I'm available all night after 9:30pm EST tonight. and all morning tomorrow before 2pm EST.

 
We finally played our first game just now.  It was such a weird game.  1st period it seems everything I threw on net went in.  there was this crazy goal that chara batted out of the air on a rebound.  2nd period was the period of the penalties.  I think I had 7 penalties. 3rd period not much happen.

After the game unfortunately MVP logged off without saying what was going on so we got 1 game down.  Don't know what is going on. 

 
That's what I hate about this game.  It seems like at times everything will go in and at other times good luck getting anything in.  That's what was going on with me against Vancouver.  Seemed like at times no matter what the calls were all for Vancouver and the 3 I was able to win were just by luck.

 
What's the status with Boston and Detroit? I heard a little bit from Boston and a little from Detroit (through PM). I understand the frustrations with the game...but this far in, we need to just power through it and then reassess what can be improved to try to make another season more enjoyable.

Also, even in the playoffs, let's all try to be respectful of each other. I understand that the hitting in this game is stupid and sometimes hilarious. But let's at least be mindful of the after the whistle play. You can actually draw penalties by making the AI on the other team retaliate. (which was a problem they fixed in what...NHL 11 or something?) This is pretty crappy when it happens, so let's be mindful of it, and not just keep skating around the ice ramming people well after the whistle.

Let's just get this season wrapped up and see where things stand.

 
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I haven't been posting much, but I just want to say that this season was really enjoyable for me. It ended with an amazingly competitive series between sendme and myself. I really hope we continue with another.
 
Matt Young said:
I haven't been posting much, but I just want to say that this season was really enjoyable for me. It ended with an amazingly competitive series between sendme and myself. I really hope we continue with another.
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There's probably a 99% chance it won't be a continuation. I'm fairly burnt out on NHL as it is...and I'm pretty sure there's 3-4 others who feel the same way (if I were to continue with my team, it would probably only be in a GM capacity...playing games with them is mostly futile). A lot of people had star players missing half the season or more. Roster moves were mostly non-existent because of the waiver rules and cash strapped teams. And some people just had too much of an advantage by having superior teams.

I love playing as the real Predators team but with what's required to "be awesome" at this game, it defeats the point of playing in a sim league at all. If I need to douche it up and do twirl shots and go for shit rebounds to compete, more than likely, I'll just go play something else. And it's even worse when the CPU plays that way.

I had a lot of games where the CPU was just flipping a shot on from one side, getting a rebound to the other side, immediately flipping another shot on, getting a rebound back to the other side, and rinse/repeat until it's finally a goal. My AI players don't get to anything and by the time I switch into the closest player, it's going back the other way. And this is with 90 OVR Pekka Rinne in net.

 
Yeah, this was a tough season. Game 6 of my series against Carolina was a prime example. Their third goal was something they just flicked on net from the blue line while changing lines. And it trickled in. Then I outshot them by 10, hit the post twice and lost in Double OT.

 
Ya I am done with this also.  Detroit doesn't want to play me it seems.  Can't ever setup a time with me.  Also seems to complain about the game if he loses.  Thanks a lot for setting up this league it was a lot of fun.  Maybe next year will be better.  

 
sendme said:
Whats going on with the league? Are we even going to finish the season?
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Yeah, we're actually ready for the Finals. I ended up just simming the Boston/Detroit series since Detroit refused to play Boston anymore and then Boston dropped out. I reached out to mvp before that, but never got a response. So, my logic was it wouldn't have been fair to let him play the CPU, but if he won the sim, I wouldn't have had a problem with him playing the next round (which was guaranteed to be against the CPU since it was NJ or Carolina).

BUT...the way things shook out, Boston won the sim. So, DarkTower is the last man standing with Colorado, and beat Vancouver in the Western Finals. I just haven't loaded up the game since he finished that series to advance us. I'll try to do it tonight. A very anticlimactic end to the season...but also par for the course for EA. We'll see what options exist for this franchise when the season concludes, but I'm like 99% positive injuries can't be turned off and settings can't be altered even between seasons.

Rob (jza1218) mentioned on Friday that he read custom sliders CAN be used in GM Connected...but something like they have to be loaded before each game...and are up to each individual. If this is true, and we wanted to utilize it, we'd have to agree on a slider set and then remember to load it before each game. I honestly haven't looked into it, but if Rob has a source he can post, I'll definitely take a look at it. Like I've been saying, I'm for anything that can somehow make the game more enjoyable...because as it stands now in its current state, it's pretty shitty.

 
jza1218 said:
http://www.operationsports.com/forums/ea-sports-nhl-sliders/701293-question-about-sliders-gm-connected.html
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Ah, so that's the post you were talking about. Too bad there's not a lot to go on there. Like I said, we're pretty much always on "custom game" because of changing the post whistle rules to authentic, so maybe that can be something we try for next season. Whether that would be enough to keep us from wanting to start over with random rosters, I don't know. But it's something to test.

 
That's not the only reference I found to it, there are several more, both on OS and on EA's forums. That was just the most recent one.

 
Cup Finals are done.  Colorado with the 4-0 sweep and Paul Stastny gets the Conn Smythe trophy.  Getting Hejda back for the Finals was huge, it let me put Barrie back to the 2nd pairing and get more production from the point.

Funniest thing is that EA screwed up the Stanley Cup presentation.  They presented the Cup to my 4th line left winger.  I guess it's because Landeskog is my captain and was out injured but that was the last player I would have expected.

 
the-nightmare-is-over.jpg


 
Congrats Brandon.

Reason #245 why basketball sucks: The championship trophy is a lopsided cup. With a lollipop for even more sucking.

 
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moojuice said:
Congrats Brandon.

Reason #245 why basketball sucks: The championship trophy is a lopsided cup. With a lollipop for even more sucking.
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I'm sorry, we were looking for "It looks like a basketball being tossed into a wastepaper basket...because basketball is garbage."

You're slipping, lol :lol:

 
No hurry.  I would rather figure out what's going on first.  Are we continuing, starting over or what.

 
jza1218 said:
So what's going on? I know we advanced to the messy draft board, what's the next step?
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Starting over? I don't know what else people really want to see. I was scared to advance us any further because the game really gives no indication of how many "steps" there are or what comes next. All I had was "prioritize draft" or something like that. I thought for sure we would have had retirements...and at least RFA's before the draft. I honestly have no idea what is going on, lol. I'll do whatever anybody wants me to do at this point.

 
Seeing how the trade deadline is a week from today if we start over can we start after that?  Seeing how it's been as long as it has that we haven't played I would rather start with the changes from the draft.  That is if EA is going to do an updated roster based on the draft and by start over your talking a new league.  That's what I would like to do if we start over however I'm fine with us just continuing the current league.  

 
I could go either way. Also, i'm confused by what draft youre taking about. Like the one from the beginning of the season? I thought out rosters already included the Draft class.?
 
Yeah...he typed "deadline" once and then "draft" twice...and a couple of those sentences got a little out of control, lol. Either way, honestly, I would probably prefer random rosters. The game just gives too much of an advantage to the "good teams"...and I'd really prefer to not have another Boston situation.

I think I've said this before, but if we were to continue with the current league, I'd probably only participate in a GM capacity. The current Preds team just has too many holes, and it made it hard to WANT to play the game the right way. Sure, I could douche it up, go for rebounds, shoot those drag shots, etc. but then it just defeats the point of a league to begin with. I wouldn't mind even keeping the current league up and advancing once or twice a week...as almost a fantasy league kind of thing. But yeah, I probably wouldn't care to play any games.

I think the biggest idea of starting over is trying to do something drastically different to see if it makes the game any more enjoyable. If we're doing mostly the same thing...we're very likely to just get the same outcome.

 
Just because I felt motivated, I popped in the game to confirm what can be turned on/off for making a new league.

Injuries: we can definitely turn these off

Waivers: we can turn this off...which in theory would give teams a lot more flexibility in actually utilizing their AHL club

Salary Cap: we could actually choose to turn this off...but I think if we had injuries and waivers off, the salary cap wouldn't be as suffocating because you wouldn't be hurting for players so bad

And as I mentioned before, simply changing the post whistle rules to "authentic" changes the "Game Style" to custom...which is supposed to allow sliders to be used. I still haven't had a chance to test this, so I have no idea if it works...but it just seems like a very odd way of implementing it...allowing people to load them on their own on a game by game basis.

Oh, also...we can choose to play with a different tuner set. So, if anyone has any idea which one was an actual improvement before they went crazy with rebounds and made the game play more like NHL 13 again, we could try that out too. Just for the sake of reference, the options for tuners are: V1.00, V1.01, V1.02, V1.03, and Latest.

 
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